Cloaked

by Taylor Hobbs

  The black horse and his dark rider burst into view, and this time, Charlotte was ready. She felt like she had been waiting her whole life for this, and a sense of peace overtook her. She held steady, legs splayed wide in a sturdy stance, watching the pair approach. Fawkes’ hand reached out to her, but she hardly touched him as she leaped onto Ghost, as though they had practiced it a million times before. She settled in behind him and gripped his waist as they thundered away.

  Once the rebels were a comfortable distance behind them, Fawkes slowed Ghost and dismounted. Charlotte felt a pang of regret that the ride was over so quickly, wanting to savor her one last moment with him before everything changed. The front of Charlotte’s body felt the chill, and her arms ached with emptiness as her feet found the ground again.

  The ride had pulled Fawkes’ hood off, and he stood motionless yet windswept in front of her. She fidgeted, unable to achieve the absolute stillness her mentor accomplished as he separated his body from his mind. He simply waited for her to speak.

  “Josephine is alive,” she said.

  “Yes, so you’ve mentioned. My question is, why would you believe such a thing? And who have you mistaken to be my wife?”

  “There is no mistake. That man you saved—Stefan—did he ramble about a mysterious woman in the castle?”

  Fawkes frowned. “No, but he was barely conscious when I dragged him out. I handed him off to the men waiting to take him just outside of Numencaster before making my way back to the walled city in Croantis.”

  “When Stefan started to get his strength back, and told the rebels the information that they needed, he also told them about a woman in the castle. Stefan reported that she was present when they interrogated him, but also that she had the gift of second sight. She also constantly screamed a name. That’s why William was confused when Robin said your name.” She took a deep breath. “The woman screamed for you.”

  Fawkes’ legs buckled and he dropped down to his knees in front of her. “It can’t be,” he whispered. “Impossible. My wife died in a fire.” Her story flipped his world upside down as everything he thought he knew was stripped from him. Charlotte reached out to run her fingers through unkempt blond locks, but the hand that shot up to her wrist stopped her before she could comfort him.

  “How could I?” he asked her, eyes filling with tears. “Josie. My Josie. I didn’t know, but oh gods!” He leaned forward and retched onto the grass between Charlotte’s feet. “She is his prisoner. My wife has been screaming for me to save her.” Tears mixed with vomit as Charlotte watched him break down. He scrambled back from her in horror and curled up into a ball.

  Every part of Charlotte ached to touch him, but she didn’t dare. It was wrong. She knew it was wrong to love him. Her own tears ran freely down her face as she watched his agony. She felt his devastation as if it were her own, and the desperation to ease some of his pain. But her heart couldn’t take it if he stopped her from reaching out to him again.

  “We’ll save her,” she promised him, voice cracking. “Both of us. We’ll save her.”

  Fawkes didn’t answer, drowning in his guilt. He stood up and yanked his cloak off. He threw it as hard as he could before sitting back down to think, cradling his head in his hands.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once the shock and grief that accompanied the revelation waned, Fawkes tried to dismiss Charlotte again. Whether it was due to guilt from their relationship, or genuine concern for her well-being, she didn’t know. It still stung when he tried to push her away, but she was expecting it this time.

  “No,” she said.

  “Charlotte, I need to do this.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “And how do you think you’re going to do it alone with an arrow-shaped hole in your shoulder?”

  He looked at Charlotte with red-rimmed eyes, and she gentled her tone. He was too raw to be thinking clearly. “There’s nothing for me to go back to,” she reminded him. “I don’t want anything to do with the rebels anymore, and Henry can’t be reasoned with right now. Plus, Duke Belaq will try to hunt me down no matter where I go.”

  “This could be suicide.”

  She gave a harsh laugh. “Do you really think I expected to escape when I tried to break my brother out? All I knew was that I would never forgive myself if I didn’t try something. Anything. That wasn’t a life I could live, and I know you feel the same.” She took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Well, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if your solo mission to rescue your wife went wrong. And I know you probably don’t feel the same about me, but think about Josephine. Are you willing to risk her rescue on a gamble that you’ll be enough? Just because you don’t want me to help?”

  Fawkes rubbed his face, as if trying to erase the tears. “I owe her more than that,” he conceded. He shook his head in wonder. “Josie.” Charlotte waited for him to gather his thoughts, and when he spoke again, it sounded like the Cloaked Shadow had emerged. “What else did you learn about her?” he asked, all business. The wall inside of Fawkes was rebuilt stronger than ever. Charlotte knew that by locking his emotions away and approaching this as any other contract, he might be able to make it out alive.

  “Nothing else, really,” she confessed. “Robin and William think she is just a rumor. They don’t believe her existence could have been kept a secret for so long, because word of her powers would have spread. I only put it together because of what you told me about your wife and her gift.”

  Fawkes stood up and began to pace. “I’ve been in those dungeons more than once over the years. I have never seen the slightest hint of Josie, nor heard any whispers about her. I was her husband. I would know if she was there. Wouldn’t I?” He looked to Charlotte, as if silently begging her to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. That he couldn’t have known. That it was all one big mistake. All the sins of his past would pale in comparison to giving up on his wife while she was still alive. After trying for five years to move on with his life, he struggled with the truth that he should have never mourned in the first place.

  “If—and this is a big if—Josephine has been held captive at Numencaster castle all these years, I doubt she would have been kept in the dungeons,” Charlotte consoled him. “She might have been hidden elsewhere, her talents only recently employed in the king’s castle.”

  Fawkes’ expression darkened. “They have kept her from me. Whoever took her faked her death and made me believe she was burned alive. My wife was the gentlest soul I had ever met, and evil dared to touch something so pure. What have they been doing to her all this time?” His voice cracked in anguish, and Charlotte found herself wishing that Josie had really died in the fire, if only to spare the seer from suffering and imprisonment.

  “Fawkes,” Charlotte said, then hesitated. “We also need to be prepared for the possibility that your wife is no longer the woman that you knew.”

  “But she remembers me. She has been screaming my name. As long as a part of her still recognizes that she loves me, I can get her back.”

  But I love you, too, Charlotte wanted to say. It wouldn’t change anything to say it out loud; it was horrible enough to think it. All speaking it out loud would do is ruin her already precarious bond with Fawkes. Somehow, she would have to force herself back to thinking of him as just a mentor instead of a man.

  It was fine to promise herself that friendship would be enough in theory, but in actual practice, Charlotte found it to be impossible. When they sparred, even the touch of his body on hers sent her mind reeling. Not yours, not yours, not yours, she reminded herself to the beat of every punch.

  At least Fawkes had finally relented, after much prodding from Charlotte, and agreed that two was better than one when it came to breaking into the most heavily guarded castle in the kingdom. They augmented their clothing and supplies along the way, but Charlotte knew how unprepared they were. Fawkes’ shoulder refused to heal and it was compromising his fighting skills. Much to her surprise, Charlotte came close to besting him once.
But even as her skills improved, Fawkes decided that Charlotte was to accompany him as a reinforcement, and only intervene in the direst of situations. Charlotte couldn’t argue with his reasoning, considering she had never successfully completed a solo mission before. Still, she felt like she had gained a lifetime’s worth of experience between that first time in Belaq’s dungeon and the current situation they faced.

  “And if you must choose between myself and Josephine, you have to get her out. Do you understand?” Charlotte nodded in agreement, though it made her sick to do so. If it was up to her, she would make sure Fawkes got out no matter what the cost, but she shuddered to think of the wrath it would incur. She would lose him anyway if that happened.

  So instead of dwelling on the worst-case scenario, Charlotte threw herself into her training. Her body was the one variable she could control, and she needed it to be in peak condition if they wanted a chance of making it out of the castle alive.

  Their progress was slow through Croantis, their exercises delaying them even further as they trained each day along the way. Fawkes had decided to take them directly north first, and then west over the border. “This route ensures that we will not cross paths with either the rebels or Belaq. Or whoever else the king has sent after me,” Fawkes explained. Charlotte shivered, unused to such cold. “Once we cross the border, we will have to ride south, but no one will expect an approach from the north.”

  The landscape gradually changed around them—rocky steppes and barren plains taking the place of the lush forests and fertile lands that Charlotte had grown accustomed to. Walking across the alien land, she felt exposed and laid bare, like she couldn’t hide any part of herself. She feared Fawkes could see her true thoughts and wondered how he felt about it all.

  Gone was the man who had started to open up to her. Now, Fawkes exclusively channeled the Cloaked Shadow day in and day out. The persona protected him; it kept his mind on the mission and not on his wife’s condition. He drove their training relentlessly, pushing his body further than Charlotte felt was safe in his condition. She could see how much his injury pained him with each movement, the wound re-opening countless times just as it had begun to heal.

  Sweat stood out on his brow, a red stain blossoming on his shirt as he led her through different ways of fending off attackers that assaulted her from behind.

  “I have told you a hundred times that you cannot flip me to the ground if you do not utilize my momentum.”

  Charlotte winced at the rebuke. “But you’re bleeding,” she reminded him. “It will hurt if you land on your shoulder—”

  “My shoulder will be fine. That is not your concern. Your concern is flipping me to the ground. My concern is making sure that you know how to do it properly. You have to be prepared for any scenario once we are in the belly of the beast. Now, go again, and do as I say.” The whites of his eyes were visible, but whether due to pain or his frantic obsession to get to the king’s castle, Charlotte couldn’t decide.

  They had to walk a fine line between training enough and traveling quickly, but some days Charlotte thought he looked like a horse ready to bolt. She knew he would gallop Ghost to Numencaster in an instant if he thought there was the slightest chance he could break Josie out by himself. But he wasn’t ready, and neither was she, and that would mean a death sentence for all three of them. So they strengthened their aching muscles and trudged their weary feet up unmarked paths, focusing on surviving the day.

  Even as her world was in physical and emotional upheaval around her, Charlotte collapsed into her bedroll with a sigh of satisfaction every night. Nothing had happened how she had planned, but in some roundabout way, she had gotten exactly what she wanted— to be trained by the Cloaked Shadow. To find her own inner strength as she discovered what it meant to reach for the impossible. Her mind and body pushed her past the limits she set for herself so long ago. Everyone else—Fawkes, Josie, Belaq, Henry—faded into the background as she punched, kicked, and sprinted. She sculpted herself anew as she changed how she fit into the world.

  Charlotte also watched herself change in Fawkes’ eyes as he regarded her with new respect. She had gone from a young woman with all pluck but no skills, to a partner who would one day become his equal. Fawkes looked more hopeful for the outcome of their mission.

  The day that master and apprentice crossed back over into Algonia, Charlotte could feel a change in the air. She could feel the differences between the two countries on her skin. Another world waited for her on the other side, ready to shock and test her. As they stepped over the invisible line, her senses suddenly sharpened and her body tensed with alertness. Fawkes did not have to tell her that they were back in her home country, a place that Charlotte now associated with pain, fear, and loss. It was all so achingly familiar yet horrible, and she felt the sudden urge to turn around and flee back to Croantis.

  Fawkes seemed to have the opposite reaction. Now that they were within reach of Josephine, the magnetic pull he felt toward her drove him into a frenzy. Even when they rested at camp for the evening, he paced around the fire. Charlotte watched with a wary gaze, and wondered if his reaction was nerves, anticipation, or even fear. Possibly a combination of all three. Sweet Ghost tried his best to calm Fawkes with quiet nickers and nudges with a velvet nose, but he pushed the animal away. Nothing seemed to reach him as Fawkes paced and planned the most difficult and personal break-in of his career.

  His whirling mind left traces on his body, the sleepless nights transforming into dark bags underneath his eyes. But through his turmoil, his face burned with pride on the night he finally declared Charlotte ready.

  “You have come so far,” he told her, voice rough with exhaustion. “You are incredible. You have surpassed all I had hoped you would become.” Charlotte nodded solemnly at the praise, but her heart jumped at his words. As if his hands had a mind of their own, they reached out and cupped her cold, wind-chapped cheeks. “To have put yourself through this—for me—Charlotte, I am honored to know you. To have trained you.” The facade of the Cloaked Shadow finally slipped, and he became Fawkes once more.

  Charlotte was surprised to see the depth of emotion in his face and realized how much of himself he had been hiding from her since discovering that Josephine was still alive. To hear the words and see the loneliness on his face was shocking after weeks of purposeful distance between them. She wondered if it was crazy to think that underneath it all, this was still the man who had kissed her so passionately in Croantis. A man who yearned to connect.

  She longed to lean in, to tangle her fingers in his wild hair and pull his lips down to meet hers. To continue what they had started before he left, and then what was interrupted when he reunited with her in the river. There was nothing to interrupt them here, and Fawkes’ thumb brushing her cheek in gentle circles was doing nothing to dissuade her from her inappropriate thoughts.

  But still, an invisible force held her back, and they simply stood frozen in the moment, two warriors acknowledging the fire and skill they both shared. The touch was innocent enough not to muddle things up with definitions of right or wrong, and Charlotte wanted to hold onto it forever. She wanted to bask in his pride for her, to soak up his words and forget for a moment why they were doing it all, because right then, she was the only woman on his mind. Charlotte couldn’t feel her torn muscles, the aching cold, or her cracked skin. The warmth that rose up inside of her felt hot enough to burn her, and part of her wanted to go up in flames. But the scorch would consume both of them if she stayed silent any longer.

  “I’ve become the person I’ve always wanted to be,” she murmured, tilting her head away from his palm. “Thanks to you.”

  Fawkes shook his head slowly. “You have possessed it within you this whole time. I just helped to draw it out.” He sighed and dropped his hand. “I have never met anyone else like you.”

  Charlotte’s eyes widened at his words, and in an instant, they no longer felt alone as the ghost of another woman suddenly appeared bet
ween them. He winced, and the spell was broken. He stepped away, and it was all Charlotte could do not to grab him and bring him back to her.

  Instead, she straightened her spine and said, “We are partners in this. You and me.” Even if we can’t be together any other way. It would have to be enough. It was too confusing to go back and forth between them. It was a relief to see the mask slip back onto Fawkes’ face as he closed himself off and became the Cloaked Shadow once more.

  Charlotte honestly believed that that was the last time that Fawkes would appear to her. It cost both of them too much when he slipped up and showed her his true self. Weeks of building a professional relationship had been undone in the course of a few stolen moments, and the awkwardness was palpable as they busied themselves with the camp. They could barely look at each other as they nibbled their jerky and stoked the fire. A cold snap moved in and a light snow began to fall, flakes tickling Charlotte’s face as she huddled closer to the fire.

  Once the flames faded into embers, Charlotte and Fawkes got ready for bed without a word to each other, their movements in sync. They curled up in their separate bedrolls, leaving a responsible amount of space between them. Charlotte rolled over, her back to Fawkes. She thought she heard him whisper, “Goodnight,” but she squeezed her eyes shut and ignored him. She yearned for just a few hours of sleep, the freedom to not obsess about the man next to her for a time. If only my teeth would stop chattering.

  ****

  Charlotte was hot. So hot she was burning up, her body slick with sweat underneath her blankets. She awoke with a gasp and tried to remember where she was. Blinding white shocked her eyes as she wrenched them open, only to shut them again immediately in pain. Snow, she realized. It snowed last night. I’m outside.

  This realization only confused her further as she tried to wrap her head around why she felt so warm in the middle of a snowstorm. She heard a sleepy grumble behind her as a muscular arm tightened its hold around her stomach, clutching her until she was flush against a strong chest. His breath tickled her ear as he nuzzled into her neck, and Charlotte gently pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. He sighed contentedly while Charlotte froze, trying to figure out exactly why Fawkes was in her bedroll with her.